God the Father chose you for eternal life.

 

Sermon for Trinity 3, June 21, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

John 6:37 & 10:27-30  ³⁷Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. … ²⁷My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.  ²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand.  ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.  No one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.  ³⁰I and the Father are one.” (EHV)

God the Father chose you for eternal life.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            In his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Martin Luther wrote, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”  As we continue our catechism review, our topic today is the doctrine of election—the Scriptural truth that from before time began, God the Father chose you for eternal life.

The doctrine of election has often led to much contention and controversy even though it is intended to be a source of comfort for Christians.  The Lord wants us to be confident in the relationship we now have with God through faith in Jesus.  However, there are always those around who want to use the idea of God’s election for some other purpose.

Some have falsely taught that God chooses people to believe based on His anticipation that the person will believe in Him.  This is what caused the election controversy that split our synod back in the 1880s, but by the grace of God our congregation stayed faithful to the truth of God’s Word, even when a larger portion left us to follow the false teaching.  Rather than go along with the false teachers, our forefathers held to the truth that God saves solely because of His love and mercy.  Still, God chose us, not because of any good or merit in us, but because He is good and merciful to sinners through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Some have falsely taught that God’s election is based on the decisions people make.  The idea is that we become God’s sheep because we chose Him.  Yet, there are plenty of Scriptures that point out our complete inability to chose God or come to Him on our own.  Even the Jewish people to whom Jesus was speaking in our sermon text thought themselves members of God’s flock, but Jesus pointed out that they were not God’s sheep because they refused to believe Jesus’ words.

Still others have falsely taught that in God’s election of believers, He has also elected some to be damned.  This sounds logical to our fallen human intellect—if God chose some to be saved, then logically, it is assumed He must have decided not to choose others.  However, this idea contradicts what the Scriptures teach, for the Holy Spirit caused Paul to write, “God our Savior, … wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3-4)  Consequently, Jesus’ sheep are content to let these two teachings of our Lord stand side by side as equally true: God has before time began elected those who believe in Jesus as His own dear sheep, and conversely, those who do not believe were not chosen by God to be damned, but rather, it is solely their refusal to believe God’s Word that sends them to destruction.

Essentially, because God is God, there are things about Him and His ways that are beyond human understanding, yet God is always faithful to His Word.  Therefore, let us examine what Jesus has to say about God’s election of His people.  To those who rejected Him, Jesus declared, “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.”  This is simple enough for anyone to understand.  Those who believe in Jesus do so because God worked faith in that person through the power of the Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament. 

Furthermore, because God gives us to Jesus as a reward for His faithfulness, Jesus, who is ever true and faithful, will never reject us nor do anything to drive us away.  Continually, He stands ready to receive us in repentance as precious sheep in His Father’s flock.  And, because Jesus has done everything needed to restore mankind to the image of God he possessed in the Garden of Eden, the psalmist boldly declares, “You make him the ruler over the works of your hands.  You put everything under his feet.” (Psalm 8:6)  Therefore, Jesus is both our Savior and our Defender, standing between us and the demons of the world that would harm us or separate us from His love.

So, how does a person know whether he or she is a member of God’s elect.  It is really quite simple.  Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.”  This is the result of God electing to work faith in the hearts of those who hear His Word.  Solely through faith in Him, we are welcomed into Jesus’ flock.  “So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)  Look at the evidence.  Man did not create the world or put people in it.  God did that.  And mankind could not rescue themselves from God’s wrath after falling into sin; therefore, God provided the needed reconciliation through His Son.

Once sin entered the world, our relationship with God was severed and we no longer knew God nor how to please Him.  Our consciences tell us we deserve His anger, but we had no idea how to fix the relationship nor even who the true God is.  No doubt many cultures and civilizations have tried to devise ways to please whatever gods they imagined.  Many have tried to entice the fates to benefit their lives here on earth.  Yet, the death sentence hung over all people, because “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezekiel 18:20)  However, perfectly in tune with His love, mercy, and grace, God the Father chose you for eternal life.

Jesus declared boldly to His enemies, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand.”  It was a promise that should have elated the Jews opposing Jesus that day, but because they were not sheep of His pasture, they continued to fight against Him.  And that, dear friends, is the tragic example of those who refuse to believe in the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  As they reject Jesus, so the Father rejects them.

Though God the Father desires that all the lost should believe in Jesus and be saved, many refuse the marvelous gifts of God’s grace.  They are not in the heavenly flock because they have rejected the promises God makes throughout the Scriptures.  That doesn’t happen because the Holy Spirit doesn’t do His work, or because the Gospel isn’t powerful enough to raise the dead sinner to life, nor does a soul reject Jesus because God didn’t want that person in His flock.  It happens solely because of a lack of trust in the Word of our Lord.  Now, that can happen for any number of poor reasons, bad decisions, or wicked lusts.  Yet, God builds His flock, His Church, through faith and only through faith.  Saving faith never comes to anyone because of His own effort or choice.  Saving faith comes as the Holy Spirit, through Word and Sacrament, transforms the sinner’s stone-dead heart and replaces it with a heart of flesh that lives by faith.

The comforting part of God’s election for us is that not only did God choose us from eternity to be saved and worked all things throughout history so that you and I would have a Savior, then hear about Him and believe, but our Lord and Savior continues to defend us from the wiles of the devil, the temptations and cruelties of the world, and our own weak flesh.  Jesus promised the people, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.  No one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” 

For all the times we have doubted, worried, feared, or betrayed our Savior, God the Father was still holding us in His love.  He took all our guilt, all our sins, transgressions, and rebellions, and He charged them to Jesus.  In love, God the Son bore the punishment of death on behalf of all the world.  There is not one sinner ever for whom Jesus did not pay.  Jesus taught the crowds that followed Him, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:14-16)  Jesus was sacrificed for the world, for every person, for every sinner, ever.

The final argument in the teaching of election is Jesus’ explanation: “I and the Father are one.”  Now, some have used this statement to falsely teach that Jesus was saying there is only one person of God, but that doesn’t fit what He says.  Though each are a separate person, Jesus and the Father, along with the Holy Spirit, are one true God, of one substance, with one goal, one mindset, and a single commitment to save sinners through faith in the Son. 

Because He loves the Father and loves and does only what His Father desires, Jesus restored the peace with God that Adam and Eve had enjoyed before their fall into sin.  Likewise, because Jesus is the new Adam (or new Man) who restored perfect harmony between God and the human race, Jesus continues to do everything needed to keep the sheep of His flock in perfect fellowship with God, interceding for us with His Father, and turning away the devil’s accusations, so that our sins and guilt can never separate us from God’s love.

Through Jesus, the record of our guilt has been washed clean.  What remains is the righteousness Jesus lived for us and those things the Spirit has worked in us to believe and do.  What gives us true everlasting peace and joy is that the Father and Son are One in working forgiveness and salvation for all who will believe because God the Father chose you for eternal life.  Amen.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.  Amen.